Wesley So, Caruana lift Saint Louis to Pro Chess League final

The Saint Louis Arch Bishops, powered by Fabiano Caruana and Wesley So, lived up to the hype as they clobbered the Chengdu Pandas, 11-5, on Saturday, September 26, to forge a championship showdown with the Armenia Eagles in the 2020 Pro Chess League.

Sustaining the form that made him co-winner of last week’s Saint Louis Rapid and Blitz tournament with world champion Magnus Carlsen, So scored 3 points out of a perfect 4 to match the output of Caruana and push the Americans closer toward retaining their crown in the rapid online event.

(READ: Wesley So shares crown with Carlsen, pockets P2.2M)

After drawing his  games with Yu Yangyi and Ding Liren, the Filipino-born So struck against Li Chao and Wei Yi, as the Arch Bishops – virtually Team USA sans Hikaru Nakamura – humbled the powerful Pandas, virtually China’s national team.

The Armenia Eagles stunned the Canada Chess Brahs, 9-7, in the other semifinal to advance against the Arch Bishops, champions in 2017 and 2019, in the finals set Sunday.

Based on their rosters, it’s highly improbable for the Eagles, the 2018 champions, to prevail over the Arch Bishops, who also have Leinier Dominguez Perez and Jeffery Xiong.

Armenia is composed of Parham Maghsoodloo (Elo 2676), Haik Martirosyan (2622), Tigran Petrosian (2601) and Raunak Sadhwani (2545) as against Caruana’s 2835, Dominguez’s 2758, So’s 2770 and Xiong’s 2709.

So is also the 32-team league’s leading individual performer with 24.5 points out of 32 games for a performance rating of 2825.

The champion team gets $20,000 and the second placer $10,000. – Rappler.com